It is particularly important that so-called soft contact lenses be kept sterile, because they tend to cause infections in the eye if they are not periodically disinfected.
Past methods of disinfecting such lenses have involved such cumbersome steps as boiling them for a predetermined length of time, or alternatively immersing them in a disinfecting solution, particularly hydrogen peroxide solutions, removing them from the solution, and immersing them again in a neutralizing solution or a rinsing solution. This system requires a lens disinfection unit which can be cumbersome to use, since it can require the insertion and removal of the holder for the lenses several times during the course of the process. Moreover, the process has created certain difficulties, since the hydrogen peroxide disinfecting solution and the neutralizing or rinsing solutions have frequently been simple clear solutions, and the user can, on occasion, forget which of the solutions has been used, particularly where the lenses are immersed in the disinfecting solution and left standing for a period of time, during which the user forgets whether the lenses have been neutralized or rinsed. Needless to say, it is extremely dangerous to insert into the eye a contact lens which has been removed directly from the hydrogen peroxide disinfecting solution, since such a disinfecting solution is highly irritating to the eye.
There is a need for simple lens disinfection unit which is easy to use and which will automatically neutralize a disinfecting solution.